You be the ethicist!
Harry Brighouse poses an ethical question to the readers over at Crooked Timber: Graduate Admissions Committee… is deciding whom to admit…. there is a website on which potential students gossip share information about the departments to which they are applying, and many do so anonymously. However, many such students say enough about themselves that if ...
Harry Brighouse poses an ethical question to the readers over at Crooked Timber: Graduate Admissions Committee... is deciding whom to admit.... there is a website on which potential students gossip share information about the departments to which they are applying, and many do so anonymously. However, many such students say enough about themselves that if you are in possession of their file (as graduate admissions committee is) you can identify them with near, and in some cases absolute, certainty. One applicant to said department behaves on the website (under the supposed cloak of anonymity) like? well, very badly, saying malicious things about departments he has visited, raising doubts about whether he is honest and the kind of person it would be reasonable to want other students to deal with, and generally revealing himself to be utterly unpleasant. Question: is it wrong for the GAC to take this information about the applicant into account when making a decision? My take: yes, it's wrong. More precise information (how ironclad is the ID'ing of this applicant? How bad is the behavior?) might make it a tougher call. That said, it sounds like the only difference between this applican't behavior and 99% of all grad students I have known in my day is that this person put these things into print rather than speaking them at a party after several beers. [So you're saying all grad students are utterly unpleasant?--ed. No, I'm saying that all grad students, like all professors, have a side to their personalities that is best shielded from public view. I think it's safe to assume that this applicant never thought that a GAC, armed with information from the file, would put two and two together on a web site. So what would you do?--ed. Assuming the person was admitted and came, if I were the GAC I'd probably have a closed-door meeting with the person to ascertain the truth, and then put a bit of a scare into him or her. That should be sufficient to deter future printed displays of bad behavior.] What do you think?
Harry Brighouse poses an ethical question to the readers over at Crooked Timber:
Graduate Admissions Committee… is deciding whom to admit…. there is a website on which potential students gossip share information about the departments to which they are applying, and many do so anonymously. However, many such students say enough about themselves that if you are in possession of their file (as graduate admissions committee is) you can identify them with near, and in some cases absolute, certainty. One applicant to said department behaves on the website (under the supposed cloak of anonymity) like? well, very badly, saying malicious things about departments he has visited, raising doubts about whether he is honest and the kind of person it would be reasonable to want other students to deal with, and generally revealing himself to be utterly unpleasant. Question: is it wrong for the GAC to take this information about the applicant into account when making a decision?
My take: yes, it’s wrong. More precise information (how ironclad is the ID’ing of this applicant? How bad is the behavior?) might make it a tougher call. That said, it sounds like the only difference between this applican’t behavior and 99% of all grad students I have known in my day is that this person put these things into print rather than speaking them at a party after several beers. [So you’re saying all grad students are utterly unpleasant?–ed. No, I’m saying that all grad students, like all professors, have a side to their personalities that is best shielded from public view. I think it’s safe to assume that this applicant never thought that a GAC, armed with information from the file, would put two and two together on a web site. So what would you do?–ed. Assuming the person was admitted and came, if I were the GAC I’d probably have a closed-door meeting with the person to ascertain the truth, and then put a bit of a scare into him or her. That should be sufficient to deter future printed displays of bad behavior.] What do you think?
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School at Tufts University and the author of The Ideas Industry. Twitter: @dandrezner
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